softly and nicely. I have to aim at very correct drawing _at
once_, and I lay in a good deal both of form and shade with a very
soft pencil and then wash colour over; and with the colour I aim at
blending tints as I go on, putting one into the other whilst it is
wet, instead of washing off, and laying tint over tint, which the
paper won't bear. I am doing both figures and landscape, and in the
same style. I think the nerve-vigour I get from the fresh air helps me
to decision and choice of colours. But I shall bore you with this
gallop on my little hobby horse!...

November 30.

... I have sketched up to to-day, but it was cold and sunless, so I
did some village visiting. I am known here, by the bye, as "_Miss
Gatty as was_"! I generally go about with a tribe of children after
me, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin! They are now fairly trained to
keeping behind me, and are curiously civil in taking care of my traps,
pouring out water for me, and keeping each other in a kind of rough
order by rougher adjurations!

"Keep out o' t' _leet_ can't ye?"

"Na then! How's shoo to see through thee?"

"Shoo's gotten t' Dovecot in yon book, and shoo's got little Liddy
Kirk--and thy moother wi' her apron over her heead, and Eliza Flowers
sitting upo' t' doorstep wi' her sewing--and shoo's got t'
woodyard--and Maester D. smooking his pipe--and shoo's gotten _Jack_."

"Nay! Has shoo gotten Jack?"

"Shoo _'as_. And shoo's gotten ould K. sitting up i' t' shed corner
chopping wood, and shoo's bound to draw him and Dronfield's lad
criss-cross sawing."

"Aye. Shoo did all Greno Wood last week, they tell me."

"Aye. And shoo's done most o' t' village this week. What's shoo bound
to do wi' 'em all?"

"_Shoo'll piece 'em all together and mak a big picter of t' whole
place._" (These are true bills!)

Mr. S---- brings in some amusing _ana_ of the village on this subject.

A.W., a nice lad training for schoolmaster, was walking to Chapeltown
with several _rolls of wall paper_ and a big wall paste-brush, when he
was met by "Ould K." (a cynical old beggar, and vainer than any girl,
who has been affronted because I put Master D. into my foreground, and
not him), who said to him--"Well, lad! I see thou's _going out
mapping_, like t' rest on 'em." This evening Mr. S---- tells me his
landlord told him that some men who work for a very clever file-cutter
here, who is _facile princeps_ at his trade, but _mean_, and keeps
"the shop" cold a